Junior, Gordon, Stewart winless

By Mike Mulhern
Media General News Service
Published: April 25, 2008

TALLADEGA, Ala. - Yes, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is still winless. And so is Jeff Gordon.
But this week part of the focus may be moving toward Tony Stewart, who is also winless this season, coming to a track where he has finished second so many times but has never won.
However, suddenly the Stewart issue is not about Victory Lane but rather about his next NASCAR contract.
NASCAR executives and promoters have been under the gun this week to regain sports marketing points following Danica Patrick’s historic first Indy-car win. What better than to put feisty, sometimes fiery Tony Stewart in the center ring?
Will Stewart have much to say here at Talladega Speedway about all this? Probably not.
First, no matter what might happen in 2009, he’s still got seven months of championship running to do in 2008. Second, his current contract with car owners Joe and J. D. Gibbs runs through the end of 2009, though—– consider Kurt Busch and Jack Roush, and others — it’s not out-of-the-question for a driver to negotiate an early departure.
And third, Cary Agajanian, Stewart’s business agent, one of the sharpest in the sport, is savvy enough to know that a bidding war is the best way to get top dollar. Agajanian, though he tries to keep a low profile, has been involved in a number of high-profile driver negotiations during his career, going back to the Jeff Gordon-Ford-Bill Davis-Rick Hendrick debate more than 15 years ago, and including Kasey Kahne’s dealings and the Kurt Busch-Jamie McMurray job swap.
In fact, those who recall the Chip Ganassi gambit a few years ago, the last time Stewart’s contract renewal came up for debate, might be inclined to dismiss the debate about Stewart’s future, which has been raging off-and-on since late last summer when the Gibbs defected from Chevrolet to Toyota. Stewart and Agajanian fanned those flames until the Gibbs’ finally came up with a nice, big number.
However Stewart’s deal this time appears to have more legs. Certainly there’s a lot more money at stake.
In fact it may be all about the money. Imagine that.
This is the deal:
Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s new money deal at Rick Hendrick’s has set a new benchmark, a package of sponsorships and other financial deals worth well over $28 million a year for Earnhardt.
And here’s Tony Stewart — a two-time champion, while Earnhardt still has yet to win his first, and Stewart has 32 tour victories since joining full-time in 1999, while Earnhardt has only 17 tour wins since going full-time in 2000 — making about $9 million a year, under the contract he and Agajanian did with the Gibbs in 2003.
And now here’s Carl Edwards, one of the hottest drivers on the tour today (with 10 wins since going full-time in 2004) looking at a potential UPS-sponsorship package that could be worth $22 million to $24 million, according to sources.
So if you’re Stewart, what would you be thinking? More money, obviously, which he is clearly worth.
But for the Gibbs’ the kicker appears to be that the Home Depot sponsorship of their No. 20 car, is locked in a particular price point, and the Gibbs’ can’t bargain with other additional sponsors for added funds.
So the Gibbs’ will have to sit down with Home Depot and find a way to have that company realize how valuable its 10-year investment in Stewart is and to have Home Depot figure out a way to put more money in the pot — probably by leveraging several of the company’s large vendors — or risk losing Stewart entirely. And if Home Depot execs say no, then Stewart can just buy his way out of his current contract.
Or at least that’s the scenario several key figures in the NASCAR garage here are laying out.
Stewart said yesterday he wanted to get through Nationwide practice before sitting down with the media.
GM officials aren’t saying anything, nor are Toyota execs; in fact both camps indicated they weren’t convinced there was really any story here yet.
Toyota officials last year had been pushing to get Stewart and the Gibbs to renewal with a long-term deal. However sources close to Stewart have said that he has not necessarily been all that enthusiastic about the Toyota situation. On top of that, new teammate Kyle Busch has been stealing Stewart’s thunder this spring, with wins in every NASCAR division.
Stewart is a solid seventh in the Sprint Cup standings, running well enough most weeks to win, and came within a hair of taking the Daytona 500. However teammates Busch and Denny Hamlin are ahead of him right now in the standings.
How Stewart handles the media this week may be telling about it all.
Stewart got so upset late last season over the contract debate — even though his current deal with the Gibbs’ still officially has another year to run — that he, after several curt responses to the issue, announced he was putting the whole thing on hold for a while.
A long while, apparently.
Now, however, the Stewart contract is centerstage again. Though it’s unclear whether it’s Stewart raising the issues, or Toyota execs pushing the ball or General Motors men trying to get the man who won two NASCAR championships for them back in the Chevy fold.
The clear sense, however, is that it’s GM making the moves.
Stewart turns 37 in a few weeks, and while drivers can play the NASCAR game into their 50s, once a driver reaches 40 his production generally tends to tail off. So this could be Stewart’s last great chance to sign a huge contract.
Will it be with Chevrolet or Toyota?
Does Chevrolet need Stewart more than Toyota needs Stewart?
Does Stewart need Chevrolet more than he needs Toyota?
Kyle Busch, who is seen by many as the best driver on the stock car tour today, will turn 23 next week. Hamlin is 27.
And the three Gibbs drivers have shown clearly that Toyota has the power and engineering to play this game to win. Toyota’s trio are in the top-seven in the Cup standings, Chevy teams hold the other four spots.
What was going on behind the scenes last year was a game plan by General Motors officials to find a way to get Stewart back in their camp, first, by persuading him not to sign any new deals with Gibbs or Toyota until they could make their own pitch.
And the big GM pitch to get Stewart back, first reported by the Journal during Daytona Speedweeks in February, was for a Stewart deal with Chevy kingpin Rick Hendrick.
Just such a package has been simmering on the backburner, and now it appears that the Hendrick deal would be for Stewart to own his own team. Of course team ownership in NASCAR is a rather vague term, with car owners using various names as ostensible team owners. For example, Jeff Gordon has part-ownership of the Hendrick-Jimmie Johnson team.
Hendrick, with Gordon, Johnson, Earnhardt, and Stewart, would be a powerhouse operation to be sure. And it’s not clear how NASCAR executives might take to it, even if Hendrick were to list Stewart somehow as a satellite operation, albeit with Hendrick horsepower and engineering.
It is probably not that curious that the Stewart debate is coming up again just as GM’s Brent Dewar is taking another step up the corporate ladder. Dewar is the man who has made it clear, on several occasions, that he wants Stewart back in a Chevrolet. And his posting to Europe is considered just another move to broaden his experience before another step up back in Detroit.
The Stewart-Hendrick angle also breaks just as GM has appointed Ed Peper as Chevy’s new lead executive in racing. Peper has been Chevrolet’s general manager the past three years and has been a very visible presence at NASCAR events.
And make no mistake about General Motors’ commitment to NASCAR racing — the company has been playing the France family’s game (albeit at times deep under the table) since the 1950s.
It is also probably not that curious that this issue is coming up just as Toyota racing boss Jim Aust is within weeks of leaving that post. Presumably Aust would like to get Stewart signed to a long-term Toyota package before he leaves.
Then again Agajanian might be pushing the agenda while Aust is still in the game to make a call.
Of course with Aust, well, Toyota’s internal politics aren’t that visible, to say the least. But only six weeks ago nearly a dozen top Toyota executives were announced to be leaving their posts too; in some circles that would be called a shakeup. And where Aust might land – he’s much too young for retirement — is unclear.
If Stewart, who has been with Gibbs for 10 years now, all with crew chief Greg Zipadelli, his sponsorship relationship with Home Depot could be an issue, obviously, since Johnson and Hendrick are backed by rival Lowe’s.